A Secret Soldier
In the Battle of Ideas

Updated March 27, 2000 12:13 a.m. ET

By Christopher Willcox, the former editor in chief of Reader's Digest, and program adviser for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1984 to 1988.

L et's begin by stipulating that there was, indeed, a Cold War. By definition, it was a battle involving not only armaments but ideas, rhetoric and moral suasion. The stakes were high, especially in Western Europe, where communists were both plentiful and menacingly influential.